INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Demand for sustainable coffee is growing, a boon for socially conscious coffee lovers — but many small growers are missing out because
they lack the ability to verify that their coffee beans are grown using sustainable labor and eco-friendly practices
In fact, verification is often accessible only to large coffee estates or cooperatives
Enveritas wants to change that
The nonprofit, which recently completed Y Combinator accelerator program, uses geospatial analysis to make the process more efficient,
enabling it to offer free verification to smallholder farms.Enveritas& goal is to end poverty in the coffee sector by 2030
Before founding Enveritas in 2016, CEO David Browning and head of operations Carl Cervone worked at TechnoServe, a nonprofit that serves
businesses in developing economies
Browning led TechnoServe global coffee practice, while Cervone advised coffee growers in Africa, Asia and Latin America about sustainability
trends.Browning tells TechCrunch that TechnoServe coffee team spent a lot of time working with smallharder farmers, many of whom don&t have
access to sustainability verification because their farms are too remote or small
The typical coffee grower served by Enveritas has less than two hectares of land, lives on less than $2 a day and relies on cash crops for
their family income.&The existing solutions work well for large estates and it can also be effective for farmers organized into
cooperatives, but many of the world coffee farmers are smallholder farmers and not organized into cooperatives,& Browning explains
&For those farmers, the existing solutions can be more difficult to access.&Part of the reason is because many verification solutions rely
on field workers who visit farms and track sustainability standards using pen and paper, a time-consuming and costly process.To develop a
more efficient and scalable system, Enveritas uses geospatial and machine learning to identify coffee farms through satellite imagery and
monitor for issues like deforestation
Though it still relies on local partners to visit farms and confirm that sustainability standards are being followed, its technology
enablesEnveritas to provide verification services for free.Enveritas checks for 30 standards, which it divides into three categories:
social, environmental and economic
&Social& includes no child labor and workers& rights; &environmental& checks for problems like deforestation, pollution or banned
pesticides; and &economic& covers minimum wages, ethical business practices and transparent pricing, among other standards.The organization
currently operates in 10 countries, including Uganda, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, with plans to expand into more
markets.Sustainable coffee isn&t just in demand by caffeine lovers with a penchant for social justice
Many of the world biggest coffee companies, including Illy and Starbucks, have launched sustainability initiatives as part of their
corporate responsibility measures
Offering coffee grown using sustainable labor or environmentally friendly practices also helps differentiate their products in a crowded
Research by the National Coffee Association, an American trade group, recently found that many millennials prefer sustainable coffee, with
up to two-thirds of 19 to 24-year-olds surveyed said they pick their coffee based on whether it was grown using sustainable labor and
environmentally friendly farming practices.While coffee is currently its main focus, Browning says Enveritas& system can be applied to other
agricultural products that need more visibility in their supply chains
For example, it also can be used to verify the sustainability of cocoa, cotton and palm oil.As a nonprofit, Enveritas faces different
funding challenges from other tech startups
Browning says it is currently at the equivalent of being ready for a Series A
Much of its backing comes from coffee companies (Enveritas can&t disclose which ones) that hope to benefit from Enveritas& solutions.&One of
the advantages of this system is that it reduces the cost for coffee companies relative to the traditional pen and paper system, but it also
simultaneously free for farmers,& Browning says
&That one of the most compelling innovations, so it a win-win for both.&
